Cash settlement for retail establishments is often handled in a back room or other service area, where cashiers or other employees load and empty cash register drawers and count and record amounts of cash taken and returned by the cashiers. The comparison of cash taken with cash returned is often referred to in banking as “cash settlement.” This can also be referred to as balancing or reconciliation. Cash settlement in back rooms of retail establishments has often required separate calculations and record-keeping. While some cash settlement systems have been provided for banks in which personal computers have been connected to cash handling machines, there has not been a convenient and compact machine available for retail establishments.
In recent years, advances have been made in cash handling equipment by making the equipment smaller so that it can be used on a desktop while retaining many of the functions of larger machines typically used in banks.
Geib et al., U.S. patent application Ser. No. 2001/0034203 published Oct. 25, 2001, shows a small coin sorter for filling a coin tray with coins counted by the machine. This allows a cashier to empty a till (also referred to herein as a cash drawer) into the sorter and have the amount counted. It is also possible to empty a batch of coins into the machine for counting as they are deposited in the till.
Various types of cash recycling machines have been known including ATM machines and large cash handling machines for gaming operations. ATM machines have generally been limited to dispensing change, cash withdrawals in the form of bills, or pre-rolled rolls of coin. The large cash handling machines for gaming establishments sort the change into bins, which must then be emptied. Change dispensers and small point-of-sale (POS) recyclers have also been known for dispensing change in multiple denominations to a retail customer via a single device such as a change cup, for example, where the denominations are mixed together.
There remains a need for a compact, bulk cash recycling machine to track cash receiving and dispensing operations for multiple employees over a work shift and to reconcile the amounts received with the amounts originally dispensed—by employee—and record the difference. The machine should have the ability to sort cash by denomination, store cash by denomination and dispense multiple denominations simultaneously, while keeping the denominations separate from each other. This is so that the cashiers will receive batches of cash in a sorted condition. The device should have networking capability with other automated cash handling equipment, for handling notes as well as coins, and with central accounting computers for reporting accounting totals. Such networking capability could utilize wires or be wireless.